Today, Naxos has released Ralph’s 30th new album worldwide: French Piano Rarities!! The album contains works by Debussy, Messiaen, Boulez and a small piece by Ravel, that are seldomly or never heard on the concert stage. One of the works is a world premiere recording of Boulez’ substantial early work Prélude, Toccata et Scherzo, for which Ralph has been granted special permission from both the Boulez heirs and the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland. Other works on the CD are, amongst others, two separate solo movements from Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux Étoiles for piano and orchestra, and a number of posthumously discovered works by Debussy and Messiaen. The works give an interesting historical perpective to the composers’ stylistic developments; for example, the mentioned Boulez work forms an easy-to-follow bridge between the romantic past and the new modern composing styles at that time. Debussy’s Étude sheds a light on his renewed interest in earlier composers at the end of his life, leading to his Sonatas for different instrumental combinations, and so on. Raymond Bisha has created a podcast about this release here and some buying options are given here!
